Living Dangerously

I opened the door leading out with trepidation. I did not know what to expect. It was not a situation I, or, for that matter, any other modern human, had been in, ever before.

I breathed in. Tentatively at first. Half expecting the atmospheric oxygen to have turned to chlorine, burning up the trachea even before the passage was traversed. And a painful death. Fists clenched and eyes shut, I braced for the burning sensation.

“Are you feeling OK?”, a passer-by enquired solicitously.

I could hear. I was alive. The air had not turned to noxious fumes while I had started that fateful journey almost an hour back. I gulped mouthfuls of air greedily.

I did not see the speaker as I was looking down. Even if I was looking up I would not have seen the speaker as my eyes were shut. But I managed a weak smile.

I was in the open now. I looked up, still cautiously, to see the setting sun, which was higher when I had gone inside. Evidently, the Earth had not stopped rotating during that hour.

I have never jumped into the cage of a tiger. With the tiger present. Or without.

I have never dived down to the Marianna Trench, stripped down to my shorts, just holding my breath.

I have never cartwheeled down Mt. Everest. Or Kanchenjunga and K2 for that matter.

I don’t know if others have, but I have not.

It is not that my life has been a series of predictable, boring events, bereft of those magical moments of human endeavour, flirting with danger and excitement, that give meaning to life. I have been brave, when the need for being brave has arisen.

‘Twas me who, once upon a time, in college, had answered “Present sir” on behalf of a classmate missing from an Accounting class.

‘Twas me again, chipping in from a point just off the green from where I could just as easily, and with better results, have putted.

I get goose pimples just thinking about these incidents and look forward to the time when I will recount stories of these extreme adventures to my grandchildren, with a fire crackling in the background.

It is the daring and adventurous spirit of motivated individuals that has made the human story that much richer. Individuals who sailed the deepest oceans, climbed the highest mountains, trekked through the densest jungles, with scarcely a thought for personal safety. In short, boldly went where no man had been before.

Mankind has often found itself at a crossroads, where selfless sacrifice and the daring spirit have lit up the way for future generations.

Another such crossroads had been reached by mankind.

Unanswered questions had been gathering. Dust. The thought that mankind might never know, had been disturbing me no end.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

Not one to be cowed down in the face of danger, as readers would have realized by now, I made the ultimate sacrifice. So that future generations do not have to live in the dark. So that the human story can continue.

Throwing caution to the winds, I left my mobilephone in the locker when I went to the gym for resuming my losing battle with creeping unfitness. For an hour.

Yes. You read that right. I left my mobilephone in the locker when I went to the gym. For an hour.

To seek an answer to the question that had been disturbing humanity ever since the invention of mobilephones, and one that no human had dared to seek an answer to, “What disaster would befall humanity if I stopped peering into the mobilephone for a short while?”

As soon as I shut the locker door…Silence…More silence.

Imagine images, perhaps blurred, moving in circles in slow motion and incoherent sounds emanating from them. As happens at a momentous turn of events in real life, as we know from Hollywood and Bollywood movies. Like when Harry Potter went looking for the Horcruxes. Like when Ram unleashed the arrow that eventually felled Raavan.

By now we all know that I survived the ordeal. But only I know how long that hour was. Everywhere I turned, there was a caring human tightly clutching his mobile to ensure that atmospheric oxygen does not turn to chlorine; or one looking at his mobile screen every three seconds to ensure the Earth does not stop rotating; and yet another continuously talking on it to prevent an alien invasion. I felt like a total misfit there. I was surrounded by accusing eyes inside the gym. Right under the myriad signs pasted on the walls that said “Do not use mobiles inside the gym”.

The effort, the moments of self-doubt, the hours of indecision, have taken their toll on me. My nerves are shattered. I don’t know how many more posts I can write.

How will posterity judge me? I hope as a person who made the ultimate sacrifice. Of staying away from his mobilephone for an hour to seek answers to questions important for mankind and light up the way for future generations. And not as one who put mankind in danger because of his cavalier attitude. After all, anything could have happened in that hour.

At least I will have another story to tell my grand-children. I stayed away from my mobile for an hour. Do you think they will believe me?

Before signing off, a note of caution for readers, who would do well to understand that the acts of bravery described in the article were performed by experts. Or, at least people claiming to be experts. Any attempt to perform them unsupervised could lead to grievous injury and harm.

Moreover, in order that mankind is not put to any more undue risks, people should ensure that the following guidelines are religiously adhered to:

Do not, ever, attempt to walk across a busy road without being glued to a mobile screen.

Do not, ever, go without your, or anyone else’s, mobile, to the gym where signs of “Do not use a mobile” are plastered on the walls around you.

If your mobile does not ring noisily inside the cinema hall, make sure you let other viewers feel safe by making a call every few minutes and talking loudly so that they know you are “on the watch for mankind”.

Drive a car only when you have text messages to type on your mobile. Even better, drive a two-wheeler while typing text messages.

Is a little bit of individual sacrifice for the greater good of mankind too much to ask for?

47 thoughts on “Living Dangerously”

I hope no mobiles were harmed or molested in writing this priceless satire. There is always a first time in crime, it is always easier subsequently. Time to dial out of the pesky poachers and posterity!

It is uplifting to see how the present generation is single-mindedly pursuing their life mission of making Mark Zuckerberg and Apple stockholders rich beyond belief. With a direct implant of processors, I spend sleepless nights worrying if our grandchildren will have the same lofty goals to pursue.

Oh this was precious. At first I didn’t know what to expect and then, amidst stifled giggles, I just went with it. Believe me, I was laughing with you. Answering ‘present sir’ for a missing classmate. Some day, Ankur, I hope to meet the man who was so brave.

Had enough adventure. Clean and sober 15 years Mar 3. Boring is delightfully comfortable for me. Well others may consider my life boring but reading, drawing, children and grandchildren even just raking up the leaves in the fall makes me content. I did do some traveling. I went to the local shopping mall. Two years ago.

Absolutely loved your wit in this article. It really generated some great belly laughs on things we see everyday and shake our heads about. We are so glad our paths have crossed and it is going to by fun tagging along and seeing more of your world through your words and pictures.

Thanks again! It has been a delightful blogging experience for me, coming across many different people, with different views, with different ways of telling their story and conveying their message, commenting, interacting, and, above all, being non-judgmental. I look forward to interacting with you through our blogs.

Thanks again for your kind comments. Except for manmade one-ways, in my view all roads are two-way affairs. If you do learn something from me, I am sure it will be an equally rewarding process for me. Thanks again.

I will wait for a day or two for my mobile phone to reboot. I turned it off when I read this and was making sure that my phone and my computer had not been infected. So when I am certain I wish to reblog this post. If you can give me some kind of assurance, at least a bit of a stab in the dark, and your permission I think there are about five or six of my followers who could do with the ‘heads-up’.

I think we could have more serious explanations to give to them. Like, “water, spelt as w-a-t-e-r, used to be a freely and naturally available resource?”, “did you know we used to grow food, not manufacture it?” and “we could roam the streets without gas masks”.
Books, and stories, my guess is, will surprise us with their continued popularity.

One journalist recently opened an article with this thought experiment: “Try to pinpoint the last time you took a purposeless walk through the late spring breeze, when there was no itch in your hand to reach for a mobile device, and you felt like the wind and sky around you had nothing to disclose to you other than the vast and mysterious sympathy of existence itself. Was it 2007? Or as far back as 1997? Does just asking the question make you feel ill?”